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Welcome to Vol. 5 of “Who's Got My Extra?” — Jamtopia's series all about the business and pleasure of concert tickets.
See all posts | Buy concert tickets

Yesterday Wall Street Journal reporter Ethan Smith blew the lid off one of the worst kept secrets in the music business — Concert Tickets Get Set Aside, Marked Up by Artists, Managers.

And best of all, he named names, so you know exactly which artists are gouging their fans with inflated prices for concert tickets.

Smith outs a wide range of artists and managers, from Neil Diamond and Celine Dion to Bon Jovi and Van Halen to Billy Joel and Elton John. Even no-longer-bald Britney Spears gets called out for a little scalping.

Virtually every major concert tour today involves some official tickets that are priced and sold as if they were offered for resale by fans or brokers, but that are set aside by the artists and promoters, according to a number of people involved in the sales.

Of course none of the acts the WSJ contacted got back to them… probably embarrassed that they're now in the same camp as Gene Simmons, in it for the money and not the music.

Hey, at least Gene's not trying to hide anything.

Update (March 16, 2009): Well it seems Michael Jackson may have a little Mike Damone in him too, at least according to the veiled accusation in this WSJ article.

Meanwhile, guy-who-gets-it Trent Reznor clued in his fans with incredible transparency on the NIN forum (see quote below) — picking up a story that, as Lefsetz noticed, didn't get much traction in the media beyond the original article.

The true market value of some tickets for some concerts is much higher than what the act wants to be perceived as charging. For example, there are some people who would be willing to pay $1,000 and up to be in the best seats for various shows, but MOST acts in the rock / pop world don’t want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high.
Trent Reznor on the NIN forum

Related Links

• Concert Tickets Get Set Aside, Marked Up by Artists, Managers [WSJ]
• Singer Neil Diamond Under Scrutiny in Ticket Markup Arrangement [FOXNews]
• Who's Scalping Those Concert Tickets? Artists And Agents, Frequently [Consumerist]
• Scalping [Lefsetz Letter]
• Trent Reznor thoughts on ticket re-sellers / scalping [NIN Forum]
• AEG Accuses Ticket Agent Of Scalping Jackson Show [WSJ]
• More Scalping [Lefsetz Letter]

Welcome to Vol. 4 of “Who's Got My Extra?” — Jamtopia's series all about the business and pleasure of concert tickets.
See all posts | Buy concert tickets

Editor's Note: I tried to cover the Live Nation and Ticketmaster merger as an update to my open letter to Nathan Hubbard about the Phish ticket debacle at Live Nation but the story has escalated to the point where it needed a full post. Also, huge props to Chris Walters at Consumerist for coining the phrase Satan's Box Office. Genius.

Late in the day on February 3rd, the Wall Street Journal reported that Live Nation and Ticketmaster are “close to a merger” — a deal that would centralize control of concert ticket sales, artist management and concert venues under a single corporate umbrella.

Per the article, the two-headed beast's prospective name is Live Nation Ticketmaster Live Nation Entertainment Inc. Too bad they didn't go with Masternation. It could've been the name and corporate manta all rolled in to one. Plus it would've made for some hilarious antitrust hearings.

Unfortunately, the name won't be Masternation, and if you're a concert ticket buyer there's really nothing funny about the prospective merger.

For starters, Live Nation had just barely rolled out Live Nation Ticketing, a long-awaited challenger to Ticketmaster's alleged but never proven monopoly over ticket sales. With this merger, it'll be back to business as usual, thwarting your chance of seeing sub 30% service fees any time soon.

The one thing that would make the current ticket situation even worse for the fan than it is now would be Ticketmaster and Live Nation coming up with a single system, thereby returning us to a near monopoly situation in music ticketing.
— Bruce Springsteen with Jan Landau and the entire Springsteen Tour Team

Then, you've got the fact that both companies seems to over-promise and under-deliver on customer experience, with a recent disaster from each making the fees feel all the more painful.